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    Hard drive woes.

    Discussion in 'HP' started by Nilst, Mar 20, 2009.

  1. Nilst

    Nilst Notebook Consultant

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    On my DV9774ca theres two hard drives. The second (D) drive has started acting up. I download torrents and newsgroup Tv shows to it, leaves the C drive free. Its started to freeze the system if I sometime do stuff on the D drive, like un-rar a movie on the D drive.
    Theres no odd noises, nice and quiet.

    I did the hard drive scan and fix on the Tools tab in Properties of the D drive. It gets to test 4 and says its at '10% File 359 of 17254' and freezes there then!
    I did the diagnostic in the BIOS for this drive and it estimates 89 minutes to do the test, yet after 20 seconds it stops and says something like '#100068 Replace Hard Disc'.

    I gather the hard drive is toast. Its a WD 160GB. Came with the laptop exactly 12.5 months ago! I called HP and I am out of luck, I thought they could swing it for me.

    Am I right it say its toast? I gather its mecahnical, as thats what the BIOS looks for? I can't just reformat it?

    THX
     
    Nilst, Mar 20, 2009
    #1
  2. Tippey764

    Tippey764 Notebook Deity

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    You could buy a warrenty for the laptop you can buy a warrenty as long as its not 250 days out of warrenty and they will replace it for free.
     
    Tippey764, Mar 20, 2009
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  3. PlanetEarth

    PlanetEarth Notebook Consultant

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    Download and install a program called HD Tune.
    You can google it.

    And, click and check the "Health" section. If any item in the list says "failed", you need to replace your hard drive.
    Also, those signs seem to suggest that your hard drive is about to die.
     
    PlanetEarth, Mar 20, 2009
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  4. Nilst

    Nilst Notebook Consultant

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    Thanks. PlanetEarth, I just tried HD Tune. Under the Health tab for the D drive it is all "OK", although theres a yellow line indicating 'Reallocated Sector Count' almost reached its threashold. I guess I should leave it on for a while to see if anythig eventually fails. Since the hard drive sort of works, it just needs to get to the point where whatever happens, happens.

    I ran the Error Scan, and it came up with one red dot. Yet next to where it says 'Damaged Blocks' on the side, it still says 0.0%.

    Their website says if theres even one bad block then back up and replace the hard drive.
     
    Nilst, Mar 21, 2009
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  5. Nilst

    Nilst Notebook Consultant

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    Update. I did the slower Error Scan and its come up with 0.8% and about 21 red blocks. so doesn't look good :eek:
     
    Nilst, Mar 21, 2009
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